Today’s source of entertainment was a journey back in time to the days of communism in Czechoslovakia.

And what better place to experience what is was like than the Museum of Communism. You know the one… it’s the one located next to the casino, right behind McDonalds. Ya, that communist museum. 🙂

Next to some of the statues and paintings of Marx, Lenin and Stalin…

…were some recreations of environments at the time the communist party was in power. Like this grocery store with a total of 2 kinds of canned food to choose from…

…complete with the advertisement for Kofola, the commie version of cola…

Or this replica of the Berlin Wall

The most disturbing part of the musuem was the recreation of the school house where the description on the wall explained how the children were taught from a very young age how to hate people that had great wealth or ventured outside the norm.

Ahhh, there’s nothing like a good ol’ fashion brain washing to make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside!

Of particular interest was that 20 years into the Communist regime the Czech government begin to ease restrictions on freedom of press, art, and speech. This did not please the Soviets, and led to the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, which was designed to crush the liberalizing reforms. Any sign of disapproval of the regime was persecuted by secret police and opposition moved underground or became limited to isolate acts of protest, such as the suicide of Jan Palach, student of Charles University, who lit himself on fire, and burned to death on Prague’s Wenceslas Square in 1969.